Recipes and news from the makers of Zest Recipe Manager

It must be a bumper season for mandarins this winter in Australia: there are stacks of them everywhere, super cheap and super sweet. We’ve always had a plentiful supply on hand for Miss One, but the little tyke can be fickle: she loves them one day and not the next! So with a few of them piling up and an episode of MasterChef tickling my sweet tooth (the high tea episode, to be precise, so many beautiful treats…) I knew what I had to do. But truth be told: I’d never cooked with mandarins before! This recipe leans on the success of my Syrupy Orange and Cardamon Steamed Puddings, although made with juice in place of some of the egg and milk (to enhance the mandarin flavour).

Instead of syrup I paired these little beauties with the extra richness of chocolate, which is always a great foil for citrus. Originally I used straight dark chocolate, gently melted, and for a quick fix it worked fine. But for a real treat make up a batch of my Rich Chocolate Custard: the extra body both in texture and flavour is worth the effort!

It’s still cold in Sydney: so do yourself a favour and get some of these warming little treats on the go!

Steamed Mandarin Puddings with Rich Chocolate Custard

Prep time: 20 mins

Cook time: 25 mins

Total time: 45 mins

Serves: 4

Warm, fragrant citrus puddings lathered in rich chocolate, what more could you ask for on a cold winter night?

Ingredients

125g butter, softened

75g caster sugar

2 eggs

125g self-raising flour

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

2 mandarins: zest finely grated and flesh juiced

For serving:

300ml rich chocolate custard

Instructions

Add the butter and sugar into a mixing bowl and beat until light and creamy (a standing mixer is best if you have one).

Add the eggs, one at a time, combining each one well before adding the next.

Remove the bowl from the mixer. Sift in the flour and clove and add the mandarin zest. Fold to combine the dry ingredients into the batter.

At this point you should have a smooth but thick batter. For moist puddings you need to bring the batter to a dropping consistency (where it will readily slide off a tilted spoon under its own weight) by gradually adding mandarin juice. Add juice, a bit at a time, stirring well and testing the consistency until it is ready.

Grease four individual pudding cups with a little butter, then divide the batter evenly among the cups. Be sure to leave some room for expansion (at least 1cm). Even out the surface of the batter in each cup.

Cover the cups with a square of baking paper then a square of foil, pleated in the middle allow extra expansion room. Secure the coverings to the cups with twine.

Cook the puddings in a double steamer over boiling water until just cooked through, about 22-23 minutes. Remove from the steamer and allow to cool slightly before uncovering and turning out of the cups. You may need to carefully run a knife around the edge of the cup to dislodge the puddings.

Frittatas are a such a wonderfully easy way to feed guests. They can work at any meal, cook quickly, and the eggy base can take on so many flavours. In this case we have a triumvirate of taste: a sweet leek base, a fresh basil hit all laced with a little luxury: saffron. I know these gorgeous red threads are ridiculously expensive, but if handled correctly you only need a tiny bit to permeate an entire dish with their wonderful, unique flavour. The key is to steep the threads in warm liquid: I usually use water but opted for milk here for a little extra creaminess. Just look at the colour!

This pinch of threads is only about a quarter of a tiny packet, less than $2 worth, and the flavour was amazing!

A few tips for this frittata:

I’ve included fried potato to turn this into a meal of its own. With a side salad, and perhaps a little bread, this makes a perfect lunch. To simplify the recipe (and cut the cooking time) you can leave out the potato and you still have a wonderful breakfast or side.

If you’re really in a hurry you can cheat further and mostly cook the frittata on the stovetop, almost like an omelet, then transfer to the grill to brown the top. It will cook in just a few minutes!

Always remove a frittata from the oven when it is slightly underdone as it will continue to cook in the hot pan. If you overcook it the eggs dry out and ruin the texture.

This is a versatile dish, so don’t be afraid to experiment!

Leek Saffron and Basil Frittata

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 30 mins

Total time: 40 mins

Serves: 4

Ingredients

2 leeks, halved lengthwise then sliced into 1cm pieces.

2 waxy potatoes, diced into 1cm cubes

6 eggs

1/4 cup milk

Pinch of saffron

Small handful basil, finely chopped (reserve a few leaves for the top of the frittata)

50g butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Heat milk to just below boiling and add saffron threads. Allow to stand and infuse while you prepare the other ingredients.

Melt 35g butter with 1/2 a tablespoon of oil in a frying pan over a low heat. Fry leeks gently, stirring regularly, until translucent and tender (about 10 minutes). Set aside.

Wow! These toddlers are serious eating machines! I’m not sure I eat that much as an adult! So this got me thinking. I definitely need to get Miss One’s dairy intake up now that She won’t get it from me. She isn’t a huge fan of drinking loads of cow’s milk so I need a way to combine it into something more appealing.

Aha! Something sweet! A dessert! And that is how this banana bread and butter pudding came about.

It uses lots of milk = dairy ✓

Fruit = vitamins ✓

Bread = carbs ✓

Egg = protein ✓

Genius! I had never considered bread and butter pudding as such a complete nutritional powerhouse!! 🙂

And if you are anything like our little household of 3, we never ever get through a whole loaf of bread before it enters stale territory so this recipe is perfect for rescuing that poor neglected half loaf. All the ingredients are pantry and fridge staples so it really is a handy little recipe to keep in your back pocket for that evening that you feel like a little bit of a sweet treat.

For this recipe, I have chosen to slow Miss One’s slippery slope towards getting a sweet tooth like both her parents so I limited the use of sugar by adding sultanas and cinnamon to the pudding as natural sweeteners. But as its a sizeable dessert, you can choose to jazz up half of it for grownup tastebuds and add some chopped hazelnuts or praline to the filling and serve with a dollop of cream or ice-cream!

Anyway, I’ve gone on too long – here is the magic recipe of a dessert that Miss One enjoyed both warm (on the first night) and cold straight out of the fridge on the second. Also because of the soft but dense consistency, it was perfect for Miss One to test out her spoon skills in self feeding.

Whisk the eggs in a large measuring cup. Add vanilla essence, sugar and milk and whisk until well combined.

Butter both sides of your bread. Cut them into fingers. Arrange fingers in a single layer to cover the the whole base of dish. Pour 1/3 of custard mixture over the bread.

Cut banana into half centimetre slices and arrange on top of bread. Scatter most of the sultanas on top. Lightly sprinkle cinnamon over.

Arrange a second layer of bread fingers on top of the fruit. Pour remainder of custard mixture evenly over and sprinkle more cinnamon on top.

Allow to rest for 5 minutes while the custard soaks into the bread.

Bake for 18 minutes or until custard is set and top is golden.

Notes

The bread is really very flexible. Depending on the size of your bread, you will need 6-8 slices to have two layers coverage of your medium sized baking dish. You can choose to have the crusts on or off which will also impact the size of your sizes. [br]PLUS you can experiment with different breads eg fruit toast is one that I love using as it already has “in-built” sultanas and spice so even less work and more flavour!

This new creation is inspired by one of our most popular recipes from last year, the Fragrant Orange Cake with Spiced Golden Syrup. As a winter dessert I’d been wanting to create a proper steamed pudding to get that beautifully soft yet moist texture. It does take a little more effort to prepare the pudding cups for steaming, but you just can’t get the same texture in a regular cake.

After playing with different approaches, I’ve finally settled on the combination of fragrant zest and punchy cardamom, steamed into perfect little puds each soaked with sticky orange syrup. I’ve made the recipe to serve four as you can manage this with a single large orange (and four pudding cups just fit into my double steamer!). This portion makes plenty of syrup to serve on the side so you can keep drenching that pudding as you eat! Add a dollop of cream if you like, but I’ve moderated the sugar such that these little beauties are perfect just as they come.

Syrupy Orange and Cardamom Steamed Puddings

Prep time: 30 mins

Cook time: 25 mins

Total time: 55 mins

Serves: 4

The perfect comfort dessert for a winter night, you’ll be glowing with citrus warmth!

Ingredients

125g butter, softened

75g caster sugar

3 eggs

125g self-raising flour

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cardamom

Zest of 1 large orange, finely grated

2-3 tablespoons milk

For the syrup:

160ml orange juice

120g caster sugar

Instructions

First you need to start the syrup. Finely grate the zest of your orange and set aside for later. Now juice the orange and strain 160ml into a small saucepan (to remove the pulp). (If you have less juice you can scale down the sugar in the next step.)

Add the 120g of caster sugar to the saucepan bring the mixture to a simmer over a medium heat, stirring to dissolve. Continue simmering for about 15 minutes to reduce to a thicker syrup. Cool small spoonfuls of syrup to test the thickness as it reduces. (Always keep an eye on a reducing syrup, as it reaches high enough heat it can boil over very quickly, if you see it frothing take it off the heat and check if it’s ready.)

While the syrup is reducing you can start your pudding batter. Add the butter and sugar into a mixing bowl and beat until light and creamy (a standing mixer is best if you have one).

Add the eggs one at a time, combining each one well before adding the next.

Remove the bowl from the mixer. Sift in the flour and cardamom and add the orange zest. Fold to combine the dry ingredients into the batter.

At this point you should have a smooth batter, but it may still be a bit thick. For moist puddings you need to bring the batter to a dropping consistency (where it will readily slide off a tilted spoon under its own weight) by gradually adding milk. Add milk a spoonful at a time, stirring well and testing the consistency until it is ready.

Grease four individual pudding cups with a little butter, then add a tablespoon of orange syrup to each one. Divide the batter evenly among the cups but be sure to leave some room for expansion (at least 1cm). Even out the surface of the batter in each cup.

Cover the cups with a square of baking paper then a square of foil, pleated in the middle allow extra expansion room. Secure the coverings to the cups with twine.

Cook the puddings in a double steamer over boiling water until just cooked through, about 22-25 minutes. Remove from the steamer and allow to cool slightly before uncovering and turning out of the cups. You may need to carefully run a knife around the edge of the cup to dislodge the puddings.

Serve warm with extra syrup at the ready!

Notes

If you don’t have pudding cups then ramekins or even teacups can be used in their place. Keep in mind that cooking time will vary based on the shape of the cups, though!

After my last post it probably comes as no surprise to see blood oranges feature again. The combination of orange and chocolate is a classic that came instantly to mind. My personal taste in chocolate desserts is maximum intensity in a small package, so I can enjoy each decadent morsel without feeling regret half way through. So it seemed natural to create these mini tarts with a dark, slightly bitter ganache offset by zesty pastry and fresh fruit segments.

You need just one decent sized blood orange for this recipe: the zest, finely grated, goes into the pastry and fresh segments are reserved for serving. Once set you should remove the tarts from the fridge so they can be served at room temperature, so the filling is softer and melts in your mouth for the full chocolate hit. Enjoy in moderation!

Sift the flour into a mixing bowl. Add the butter, blood orange zest and a pinch of salt, then rub the butter and flour together using your fingertips until there are no large lumps remaining (the mixture should resemble breadcrumbs).

Add the sugar and mix to combine.

Whisk the egg in a separate bowl, then add to the pastry a little at a time, mixing gently to combine. Once you have added enough egg (you won’t need all of it) the pastry should come together into a ball when mixed. Take care not to add too much egg or you will have a wet dough.

Flatten the dough into a thick rectangular block, cover in cling film and rest in the fridge for at least 30 mins.

Preheat the oven to 170°C.

Prepare 8 x 8cm tart tins or (if like me you don’t have such luxuries) a muffin pan for the pastry. If you have smaller tins or prefer shallower filling you can make more tarts. When using a muffin pan you need to make sure you can get the pastry out: a non-stick pan is suitable as-is, otherwise I recommend greasing lightly with butter.

Remove the dough from the fridge and place between two large sheets of baking paper. Use a rolling pin to flatten it out into a sheet about 2mm thick.

To make each tart shell cut a circle from the pastry that is a bit larger than your tins (I used a 9cm cutter for my 8cm muffin pan), then carefully line a tin by pushing the pastry right into the bottom edge. You may need to stretch/press it a little up the edges so it is at least 2.5cm deep, allowing for a little shrinkage.

Line each tart shell carefully with baking paper and fill with baking beads (or raw rice), then place in the oven to blind bake. After 10 minutes gently remove the lining, then continue baking until lightly browned all over and cooked through on the bottom, up to another 10 minutes.

When cooked, remove from the oven and allow to stand for a few minutes to cool a little (not completely or they could stick). When the shells can be handled, remove them from the tins and place on a wire rack to cool completely before you fill them.

Now make the ganache filling. Place the butter and chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of gently boiling water to melt, stirring occasionally to avoid any burning on the bottom of the bowl.

Add the cream, sugar and salt into a separate saucepan and warm slowly to dissolve the sugar. Heat the cream to just below boiling point to prepare it for combination with the chocolate.

Now comes the important part: add all of the cream quickly to the bowl of melted chocolate, whisking as you do so. You need to incorporate the cream as quickly as possible to form a smooth ganache (if this is done too slowly the chocolate may seize).

Remove the ganache from the heat and allow to stand and cool slightly. Divide the filling evenly among the tarts, then place them in the fridge to set for 1.5-2 hours.

To serve, remove the tarts from the fridge well in advance so they can return to room temperature. Top each tart with a segment of blood orange and enjoy!

Notes

If you’re lazy like me you can use simple greaseproof (i.e. not decorated on the outside) muffin cases to line your tart shells for blind baking. Despite the pleating I find these do less damage to the tarts than handmade paper linings (unless you spend a lot of time shaping your own linings).

Recipe

This spiced caramel recipe is a girlichef creation that I listed a few weeks back in a Zesty Five. I’ve not made many lollies so I was interested to try it, and luckily enough I already had some apple cider hanging around the house.

My Tweaks

Did I mention I don’t make lollies often? I played this one straight down the line owing to my lack of experience! However, I did need to translate ingredients to their Australian forms:

Heavy Cream: this is cream with 36% or more fat. A regular or pure cream in Australia will usually have 35% fat (sometimes a bit more), close enough for me.

Corn Syrup: this is a glucose syrup made from corn starch. It is rarely sold as corn syrup in Australia, but most glucose syrups these days are of the corn variety. Check the ingredients to be sure (and take care, as other glucose syrups will not work!).

Challenges and Tips

Heather mentions it’s easy to over-reduce the cider, but I got lucky. I managed to stop it at exactly the 1/3 of a cup required, which must be a first! It helped that the time estimate was bang on for me. I found the most taxing part was keeping an eye on the slowly-rising temperature, with regular stirring to ensure the caramel didn’t catch. Basically you need patience as it can take more than half an hour of regular attention to get it right.

Heather also warned that a refrigerated caramel would need to sit for some time before being ready to cut. I let mine sit for an hour in a fairly warm kitchen and it still wasn’t ideal, so if you’re on a schedule make sure you allow plenty of time! If you get impatient at this last hurdle like I did, you’ll get some splintering when you cut. The caramels are too hard to eat like this anyway, so just take your time.

Verdict

With the requisite patience this recipe produced excellent caramels! Sweet and very chewy with just a hint of apple cider and a good hit of spice. If you like five spice then you’ll love these treats. Like most decadent things they are best shared, though, as you only need a little at a time!

Slowly cooking leeks in butter brings out a wonderful clean flavour that matches beautifully with eggs, seafood or chicken. There are many ways to confit leeks, and they are all pretty simple. I like this method in particular for three reasons:

Once the leeks are on the heat, you can pretty much forget about them until they are done. You don’t even need to stir them.

You get a gentle caramelisation on the bottom side of the leeks, bringing out some natural sweetness.

Keeping the leeks in large, long pieces makes the final product as beautiful to look at as it is to eat.

For a twist you can add herbs, such as thyme, but there’s something about the pure leek flavour that I prefer to keep unadulterated.

Confit Leek Hearts

Recipe Type: Side

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 20 mins

Total time: 30 mins

Serves: 4

Gently cooking leeks in butter brings out their best flavour and adds a rich, sticky sweetness.

Ingredients

4 leeks

50g butter

1 tablespoon water

Instructions

Trim the roots from the leeks then trim off enough of the green top so they will fit laying down in a medium saucepan. Halve lengthwise, then remove the outer layers until only the tight heart of the leek remains (around 6 remaining layers). Rinse the leek hearts to remove any dirt.

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over a low heat. (The pan should not be so hot as to brown the butter.)

Lay the leek halves flat side down in the saucepan, add the spoonful of water and season with a good pinch of salt.

Cover with a lid and cook gently for 15-20 minutes, until the leeks are soft. Don’t stir the leeks, let them keep their shape while they soften.

Remove the lid, increase the heat slightly so the butter is just foaming and cook for another 5 minutes.

Remove from the heat then carefully lift the leeks from the pot to serve. They will be very soft so you need to be gentle to keep their beautiful shape.

Notes

Don’t throw away the leek trimmings, they can easily be added to other dishes. Try adding fried slices to an omlette or mash.

If you’ve been following my recipes you may have noticed I have a thing for custard. Delicious as it is, custard is also a fun component to play with as you can easily infuse it with new flavours. I’ve had it in my head for some time to try an earl grey infused version, and a high tea at our place seemed like the perfect fit. By chance I also came across some lavender petals the same weekend, and I’m happy to report they added another dimension of flavour and style! The tart really looked the business as part of our spread, and it was demolished in short order.

Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl. Add the lemon zest, salt and butter, then rub the butter into the flour using your fingertips until there are no large lumps remaining. (The mixture should resemble breadcrumbs.)

Add the sugar and mix to combine.

Whisk the egg and yolk together in a separate bowl. Add the egg mixture to the pastry a bit at a time, mixing gently to combine. With enough egg the pastry dough will begin to form together into a ball. You may not need all of the egg, so proceed slowly to avoid a wet dough.

Flatten the dough ball slightly into a thick rectangle, cover in cling wrap and place in the fridge to rest for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 170°C.

Remove the dough from the fridge and place on a lightly-floured surface. Roll it out to a long rectangle about 2mm thick.

Loosely wrap the dough around the rolling pin to lift into a long rectangular tart tin (35x13cm). Gently ease the the pastry into the edges of the tin so that it fits snugly, then trim any excess overhanging.

Place the tart tin in the fridge for another 15 minutes or so to allow the pastry to cool once more. (This makes it easier to line without damaging, and helps reduce shrinking.)

Remove the tin from the fridge, line with baking paper and fill with baking beads. Make sure the beads fill the space right to the edge so the pastry keeps its shape.

Bake the pastry for around 10 minutes until the edges are just starting to brown. Remove the lining and beads and bake for a further 2-3 minutes to cook the base through. Set aside to cool.

Turn the oven down to 120°C so it will be ready to cook the filled tart.

While the pastry is cooling, prepare the custard. Bring the cream to a very gentle boil in a saucepan, add the tea and lavender and allow it to infuse for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together in a mixing bowl until creamy.

When the cream has infused, strain to remove the tea leaves and lavender petals. Slowly add the warm cream to the yolks, whisking at the same time to form the custard.

Skim froth from the top of the custard to avoid bubbles in the tart.

Place the tart tin on the oven shelf so you don’t have to move it when filled. Pour in the custard, taking care not to over fill.

Bake the tart for 20-25 minutes or until the custard has just set through. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

When the tart is at room temperature, dust with icing sugar, scatter with lavender petals, then serve with a nice pot of tea!

Notes

A tricky aspect of custard tarts is ensuring your pastry keeps both its shape and size so that it can be filled. If you’re worried, leave some excess around the edges to allow for shrinkage. If you intend to trim it, though, do so while still hot (straight after blind baking) or it will be too crumbly.

Recipe

When I saw the photo of Jill Dupleix’s Tarte Tatin on the Good Food site I couldn’t resist. A good tarte brings back memories of visiting classic bistros in Paris. The method is not complicated if you buy the puff pastry — and you can get good quality stuff as Jill points out. But since I had the time I decided to make my own “rough puff”, which is a little work but quite fun!

My Tweaks

As this was just for Jane and myself to enjoy, making the full recipe would have been serious overkill. So I scaled down from 8 to 3 apples, and used just over half of specified butter and sugar. The result is a cute little tarte suitable for four (but check the verdict!).

Challenges and Tips

I didn’t have a suitable frying pan for the size of tarte I was making but found the apples fit well in a 20cm saucepan. The only problem was how to get the tarte out in one piece when done, due to the pan depth. Luckily I have a 20cm round cake tin that fit snugly into the saucepan and made it really easy to invert without destroying the tarte (it came out sitting happily on the inverted cake tin).

You need to properly brown the caramel to get the full flavour, but of course it can burn so keep an eye on it. As you can see above mine was a little uneven — in fact the darker side was better despite a fraction of it burning. So do as Jill says and be brave!

The only other trick is packing the pastry over the apples. Because they have been cooking the pan is hot and will begin to melt the pastry as you tuck it around the edge. Next time I’ll leave the pan off the heat just for a couple of minutes so the metal cools before I pop in the pastry. The apples should retain their heat well enough to continue cooking when added to oven.

Verdict

Wow. The combination of apple and caramel is divine simplicity, and light yet buttery pastry tops it off. I think Jill’s recipe really nails it by focusing on the development of the caramel. Even though I said this scaled-down tarte would serve four it could only serve two of me! (I mean it’s just not the same the next day, so why not go back for seconds?)

I’ve always thought of golden syrup as something quite Australian, possibly due to it being a key ingredient in Anzac cookies. And who wouldn’t want to lay claim to something this rich, sticky and delicious? Actually, though, it is pretty widely spread around the world and especially the Commonwealth. In fact after a tip from a friend I’ve become quite partial to the version from long-standing British brand Tate & Lyle. The classic green tin yields a slightly lighter, more refined version of the syrup than we’re used to in Australia. It’s a great addition, in place of some sugar, to many steamed puddings and cakes. In this recipe I’ve taken a classic Madeira batter (with thanks to James Martin’s “The Collection”) and modified it to add an extra hit of orange and decadent soaking of spiced syrup.

Fragrant Orange Cake with Spiced Golden Syrup

Recipe Type: Dessert

Prep time: 20 mins

Cook time: 30 mins

Total time: 50 mins

Sweet, fragrant and spicy, this cake demands to be eaten warm with sticky syrup drizzling down the sides.

Ingredients

175g butter, softened

125g caster sugar

3 eggs

250g self-raising flour, sifted

zest of 2 oranges

zest of 1/2 a lemon

4 tablespoons golden syrup

juice of 1 orange

8 whole cloves

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Grease and line a round 20cm cake tin with baking paper.

Heat a small saucepan over a low heat. Add the orange juice and golden syrup and warm to a very slow simmer.

Cream the butter and sugar in a standing mixer until pale.

Take the syrup off the heat, allowing it to cool slightly.

Mix the eggs into the creamed butter mixture one at a time, then mix in half of the orange syrup and all of the lemon and orange zest.

Reduce the speed of the mixer to fold the flour through the batter gently.

Spoon the batter into the greased cake tin, lightly spreading to even it out. Bake for around 30 minutes.

About 10 minutes before the cake is ready, return the remaining orange syrup to a low heat. Add the cloves and keep on a very slow simmer to infuse the spice flavour.

When the cake is done, remove it from the cake tin and stand on a wire rack to cool for a few minutes.

Move the cake to a serving plate. Remove the cloves from the syrup and pour over the top of the cake, using a spatula to spread it while it is still warm. Serve immediately!